


Discordant

by zycroft



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zycroft/pseuds/zycroft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doing a job no one else understands, they rely on each other to feel, even if they don't say much of anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discordant

It wasn’t about the sex. That was what so many failed to understand. Around the time Liv came to the squad, they were overflowing with green, wet-behind-the-ears detectives who looked liked they couldn’t have been a week out of the Academy.

None of them lasted. The job just got to be too much for the well-meaning but misguided idealists who thought it was about sex.

The sex made it easier to explain to his wife, his kids, his priest. Even the victims.  
He could tell them that his job – his purpose – was to fight against the wave of violence that turned one of the most beautiful things into an act of hatred. And he wasn’t exactly lying.

But he knew better. It wasn’t the sex that was beautiful, had even tried to impress that on his children when they each entered puberty, but they hadn’t understood. Couldn’t. And it was unrealistic of him to expect that his children, so much like him in all the worst ways, could understand what he couldn’t properly express.

Each rape victim tore at his heart. One look into their eyes and he saw a lifetime bereft of love, of intimacy and comfort, of sharing.

He’d never been so foolish as to believe he could fix the victims. He could never restore what was taken from them, so often before they even had a taste of it.

With each attack he fought the despair and hopelessness, channelled it into the old familiar rage, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists, promising himself that the guy wouldn’t do it to someone else. If he caught enough of these assholes, maybe he could save one or two people from becoming victims. Maybe.

Liv had understood from the beginning, though he didn’t know why until later.

She’d ride beside him in the sedan, quietly lost in her own thoughts as Manhattan rolled by in a soft blur, his hands tight on the steering wheel, white knuckles aching. His anger gave off a sickly smell as it seeped from his pores, but Liv left him to it. Another one.

He couldn’t predict how she’d handle each new case, and he’d long since stopped trying. Well, mostly.

She had her own anger, her own despair, her own hopes. Some cases might bring out a bit of each, others nothing at all. Surviving.

It wasn’t about the sex and sometimes, though he wasn’t likely to admit it, it wasn’t even about the love. Sometimes it was just about not being alone, about understanding and comfort. Sometimes it was just the disconnection that came with soft skin against coarse, the whispered “I know” as he trembled, and knowing that she really did know. An act of desperation, a fight against the very same helplessness his anger could only keep at bay for so long. The love was there, he would never deny that even if he wouldn’t say it. He couldn’t hide it, actually. In these moments, their understanding was complete, and if he thought about it, he realised that was what he was looking for.

The wail of the siren split the night as Manhattan rolled by in a soft blur, and he felt Liv’s hand come to rest on his taut forearm, a gentle squeeze, then nothing. The anger loosened its grip, the helplessness threatened to flood back, and the familiar buildings looked strange and alien. Another one.

If he thought to ask Liv what she thought of it, he never did. It was just what they did and he marvels that they didn’t do it sooner, that he wasn’t eaten whole by his fear before he swallowed his pride and knocked on her door, let her know the truth when she asked what he wanted. Her expressions are as easy to read as his, and it was the easiest conversation he’d never had.

The discordance between the hatred they witnessed day in and day out and the intimacy they shared late evenings when the world threatened to crush them soothed him the same way his fury did. Blood coursing through him at break-neck speeds as his heart pumped a dangerous staccato, the need to break the chains of self control and rampage even as he tenderly ran his fingers over her delicate ribs, brought them up under hear breast and caressed. It was all the same. With a timidity that belied their history, he explored, marveled, and communicated. “I know,” she whispered.


End file.
